Monday, 30 March 2009

A couple of weeks ago I arrived at the pub on Sunday rather later than usual. I immediately noticed a pong. The source of this became evident as sitting not too far away was a young man and woman of, shall we say, unconventional attire. It was not them though that produced the niff, but their accompanying two rodents, one a ferret and the other a flat faced polecat. The sweet musky smell of the polecat pervaded the pub, but fortunately they left soon after and all was well, leaving us locals shaking our heads with incredulity.

They were back yesterday and in bigger numbers - the humans, not the animals. I noticed the young girl had a kind of cage backpack for her beasties. Again luck was with us. On a very fine day indeed there was nowhere for them or their malodorous mammals to sit, so they went and sat outside, again leaving the sickly smell behind them. I didn't get a chance to have a word with the landlady about her views on this, but to me it didn't seem right to allow such niffy creatures in our small pub.

14 comments:

Pan-C used to keep ferrets. His house stank to high heaven - partly due to the ferrets. They always stayed in the cage though. Who carries ferrets and polecats around with them? Bizarre to say the least.

It's amazing what some people regard as acceptable behaviour. In addition to annoying other pub-goers, these animal "lovers" clearly haven't thought about what it must be like for an animal that has evolved to roam in the wild to be bounced around in a tiny cage. Whichever way you look at it, these two are completely selfish.

If I had my way children and animals would never be allowed in pubs, but then I'm a grumpy old git. Perhaps there should be special pubs just for smelly (all) animals, smelly people and screaming snotty-nosed kids so that they can share in mutual miasma.

There's a pub on the other side of Manchester that tried to stop the old lads bringing their dogs into the public bar by putting up 'No Dogs' signs. Peace reigned for a few days until they brought in a veritable menagerie one lunchtime. I think the largest non-dog was a goat.

Handling inconsiderate customers is one of the hardest parts of the job I find.

As we are in the mountains we get lots of smelly, wet and muddy walkers and dogs. We don't really mind them. That's why our public bar is rough and ready. We have a comfortable bar for posh residents. We also allow down to earth residents in the posh bar, but we'd probably ask them to leave their polecats and ferrets at home.

Dave: "Kids however..." Exactly. One pub in Southport banned children, not just because they were running wild and being a nuisance in the pub, but were dashing out into a busy street. The licensee told me she was sick of running after them while the parents supped on obliviously, adding, "It's a pub, not a creche."

Why do so many British parents feel it's all right for their offspring to be a damned nuisance to everyone else? Until parents make children behave, I'll avoid pubs that allow them. Parents of well-behaved children tend not to spend 6 hours boozing in a pub letting their bored offspring go on the rampage.

As for animals, I don't mind a well-behaved dog, but I certainly wouldn't frequent any pub that allowed ferrets and polecats.

Ron: you were obviously so keen to take offence about any reference to children that you missed my comment that, "Parents of well-behaved children tend not to spend 6 hours boozing in a pub letting their bored offspring go on the rampage." I've seen that kind of behaviour so often, but my posting clearly accepts there are well-behaved kids and responsible parents. I'm convinced these constitute the majority; as usual, it's the irresponsible minority who attract attention.

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A bit of a CV. Tandleman is a veteran beer lover, local CAMRA Chairman and activist, beer writer, beer reviewer and pursuer of all things good in beer. He lives in the North West of England and London. Despite his CAMRA membership, he does not limit himself to cask conditioned beer, though he believes that cask conditioning, when done correctly and appropriately, brings a quality to beer that is hard to equal by any other kind of presentation. He is a strong supporter of Northern methods of beer dispense and avidly detests poorly presented beer and dislikes pasteurisation. He regularly visits Germany, has conducted corporate British and German beer tastings for CAMRA at the Great British Beer Festival where he has worked for years on Biere Sans Frontieres and was Deputy Organiser at CAMRA's very successful National Winter Ales Festival in 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012 and at the Manchester Beer and Cider Festival from 2013 to date. He admires good brewers wherever they are and has travelled extensively in pursuit of good beer to drink.

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